Week 10 Katarina in Hawaii
GM: John Players: Alys, Jack, Lucy, Mutu, Ian Phone conversation overheard on the balcony of a newly emptied Manhattan apartment. You know, just when I thought what I laughingly call my life absolutely, positively could not get any stranger. Bozhe moi. Is that still an appropriate expression? Which one, you may well ask. So we had finished up that minor disaster. Yes, the one in the strip club on the Strip. I needed some time to clear my head, cool down. Except what do you know, I get a bird landing on my shoulder. Not so strange, maybe, except this one’s a raven, and it’s talking to me. Old Norse, if I’m not mistaken, and yet I am understanding what it says. No, no. Only Norwegian with my father, never spoken old Norse before in my life. Or Icelandic. Except obviously I have? I don’t know how these things work any more. Oh you know. Life. Mortality. Time. Gods, demons, heaven, hell. Don’t get me started on angels. So back to this raven- he has a name. Two guesses. You know your norse legends. But no, it said it was Muninn. With a mission. A… commission, is closer perhaps. During this Hunter mission I was to stop Fenrir’s mercenary company from being... well, Evil is the best word. They suspected this mission was cover for causing harm on Midgard… earth. Bozhe moi! In return, I would be… elevated to my… birthright? Nyet! Not anything I asked for or knew about. I mean, some things were not normal about me, but... nothing like this. Mama has some questions to answer. Not something I had much choice in- let innocent people get hurt, or take this birthright? Da, I’m getting to that. Excuse me for wanting to get this off my chest. Turns out they wanted us to retrieve this expert on Mesoamerican lore. Yes, those experts who could translate the soldiers prophecy who were all disappearing, all over the world. Fenrir’s CFO had a lead on an expert, one of theirs, and wanted our help for an extraction. His offered us a translation in exchange. Of course I didn’t take that deal! I’m not an expert, but I am learning the hard way. I negotiated a better deal with the CFO, who was the residual malignant necromantic energy form of a Dwarf. Da. “Ghost”. Phff. Necromancy. Lazy, dangerous, irresponsible magic, tapping others life energy. Hmm. Now I am wondering if that’s why I have always disliked it so? My new status? Valkyries of old took the worthy dead to Valhalla. The dead are not supposed to hang around haunting and possessing people, or their energies perverted and corrupted. Oh, what was the new deal? Well, all the big pantheon high-ups were in conference about whether this was Ragarok and what they would do as the prophesies weren’t possible anymore. So, I negotiated on behalf of the hunters, and maybe something more. As mid-level executives making operational decisions. In return for the extraction, Fenrir’s organisation would avoid any hostile or disruptive actions that would complicate matters for the earthly authorities, agreed until the results of that board level meeting gave a clear steer to the respective parties. Kind of a truce on their part, with our contribution this extraction. Also we get a translation of course. Eh, a good deal I think. Better than we managed in Vegas. trails off … Da. Da. I know. Gods and monsters. So, I’d already prepared an teleportation circle, as I suspected we may be travelling… elsewhere. That was a good instinct. As an aside, Fenrir uses some kind of Soul Brand on his servitors- in this case a Chinese Storm Dragon. Magnificent creature, brought low. Shame to see. It flew us to Hawaii. Us? Oh. All new hunters, never worked with them before. One demon. Da, flew through those super-storms on the back of a thunder dragon. Magnificent flight, exhilarating. Got above the storms, too. Reentry was not fun for anyone- I called on my control of winds to make a kind of windshield for us, keep us safe. A lot of power being pumped out up there. The target was at the University in Honolulu. Getting there was hazardous, the streets were flooded. I tracked his location down from his office. Something like dowsing for dwarves- but the demon scried on him which alerted the jaguar-men to his location. Good job the winds of magic were high, the gods were being very sloppy with a lot of splashover energy if you know how to harness it- everything went smoothly for my casting, anyway. I rode the storm winds to get to the dorm quickly, ahead of the others. Just in time, too- several Jaguar warriors and one of those Hybrids, were already there and going for the door. Nyet, do I look like I have death wish to you? No, I stayed on-mission of course. I ice-walled off the entrance and went in a higher floor window to find the target before they did. Pretty slick, if I say so myself. I didn’t see much of the rest, but the other hunters turned up shortly and fought. And won, as they were a few minutes behind me up the stairs. The target was holed up in the dorm with about a dozen other civilians. I tried to establish trust, but other hunters did not make that easy. I’m not sure what goes on in some people’s minds, you know. It would be nice sometimes to be able to calm people down just by talking to them, you know? That would be a neat trick. Anyway, we got the translation. I have it here, somewhere. Turns out this expert was the malignant… “ghost’s” brother, a living dwarf. Da, of course. I insisted on getting everyone out when we found the civilians with him. I told the demon- a skilled magus- to bar the building to the Hybrids while I started to complete the other half of the teleportation circle. The other hunters ran interference with the jaguar warriors. They did well, most victims still alive after 13 minutes when the spell was ready, but the building was not in such good shape. The jaguars had been tearing the students and staff apart, literally, looking for this dwarf. How did it end? Click, no place like home. Well, a nice hotel room in LA anyway. Okay, so we popped out in a collapsing student dorm in the nick of time as jaguar warriors assaulted the building. Is handy trick, to be able to travel instantaneously like that. I must have been weighed on some goddam cosmic scale at this point, because everything changed. Muninn said as much. I knew things I did not know before. Knew I could do things, I could not before. Or maybe I could, long ago? Or some past me, I think is more accurate. My ancestors come from Scandinavia. Da, both sides of the family. Rurik. I will have many questions for Mama when I see her again. Oh! Oh. I have to go. The Bifrost is coming for me, off to, yes. Asgard. And before you ask, nothing like the movies. Nyet, he’s not much like Chris Hemsworth, either.